Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Heading for the hills

So, having ducked into and out of bilgey Bangkok in under a day, we caught the night bus up to Chiang Mai. Slick and smooth experience, even running ahead of schedule, complete with dinner, almost fully reclinable seats, and at first, ghastly Thai sitcoms with blacked out sections of scenes where folks had their feet up on the desks.

No matter how I try, I have yet to sleep on a bus, train or aeroplane for longer than perhaps 5 minutes at a time. This was worse, since the conditions seemed so amenable, but I failed wretchedly. But Chiang Mai is a welcoming place for the weary.

We have eaten what I suspect were goats' balls, not particularly invigorating I concede, unless you are taken by surprise, which we were, expecting the famous delicacies of the "best dining in Thailand" but not expecting our Tom Kha Gai to be reinterpreted in such a progressive fashion.

We watched monks, and many many monklets too -this is a growth business judging from the demographics- wandering the slumbering streets at dawn, collecting rice alms from elderly ladies.

The next few days sees us trekking (we have hunted for walking that involves walking, not wandering around an elephant park, let's pray we are successful), and doing Thai massage and cookery courses. Bangkok might have Jozi's spirit and energy, but Chiang Mai seems to have Cape Town's love of the finer things in life.

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